Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Well, here we are. Christmas is nearly upon us, and 2012 is just around the corner. The Marine Corps Ball was a great success with more than 145 persons attending. Sunriver did another great job with the meal, and the band was again right on tune. A number of people enjoyed the dance music after the formal program. Pat Lisi, Dave Estrovitz, Ken Olsen and Tom Cover along with their wives put in numerous hours making it happen. The final numbers are not in but we are very close to breaking even. The ad sale, like last year, started out slow but Pat Lisi took charge and the faithful few went out and sold the ads. We should clear more than $1,200.00 after we pay the cost of printing and the certificates of appreciation that we present to everyone who purchased an ad. We also need to thank Cherry Creek Radio for running a spot for the ball on all their stations.

The dedication of the Veterans Memorial Park at Sunriver on November 11 was a success. Many of our members took part in the dedication of the park and the lunch thereafter. Tom Cover was the MC at the event. Also, on November 11, a number of our members marched in the St. George Veterans Parade.

The speaker at our November 19 meeting was again outstanding. We need to thank Steve Ikuta for finding these great programs. At the December 10 meeting the program will be on Life Flight unless they are in the air on an emergency flight. I do hope more members attend this meeting to show that we appreciate the speakers giving up Saturday morning to attend our meeting.

The Toys for Tots details are forming and, if you can help, contact Larry Mineer, Jim Haney or me for details. We will also assist this year with the Shop-with-a-Cop breakfast at the Elks Club once I obtain what help they need. I will send out an e-mail as soon as I have all the information on the event.

We are still waiting for the M-1 rifles from the Army and, as I reported before, they will not give me a shipping date. We have purchased the white rifle slings and I have started the request to receive the free blank ammo from another Army Depot. I think that I have dotted all the “i”s and crossed all the “t’s,” so now we just have to wait till they ship the items. The members at the last general meeting approved the purchase of a gun locker which was required to store the M-1's. Les Covey was brave enough to go out at 5:20 a.m. and fight the crowds on Black Friday to get us a great deal on the locker. A couple members are going to pick up the locker and take it to our storage shed.

Now that we have pictures of our members at a few different events, we will move forward to complete a brochure which we can use to recruit new members and promote the league. We may also send a package this month to the Marine unit that we adopted in Afghanistan as soon as someone contacts me to volunteer to set up a committee to handle this project. This is the second time that we tried this type project. It ended last time because no one wanted to help. They may only be deployed a few more months and at this time of the year it would be nice to show our support. I just don’t feel good about asking the same few people to step up each time to get things done.

I do hope to see everyone at our meeting on December 10 at 8:00 a.m. at the Abbey Inn. We need at least 25 members to attend to break even. Your spouses are invited to attend and hear the speaker. A couple wives attended the last meeting.

I do wish you and your families a very Merry Christmas and/or a happy holiday season along with a happy New year.